A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is your company’s private, internal network. This is a safe and encrypted network in which you can safely and securely store your business’ applications and resources. Today it’s important to understand that your Android’s VPN does everything on your phone or tablet that it would do on your desktop computer.

As such, there’s no reason your business shouldn’t have one today. Of course, you don’t want to simply choose just any Android VPN. Instead, you should consider using one of the 5 best VPNs for Android phones available today.

Vypr VPN

This is one of the few Android VPNs that allow you to control its entire network infrastructure. The result of this is a really fast connection speed. This is regardless of where in the world you’re located, since they have servers in over 70 different countries and allow you to select your own port.

Some of the other great benefits of Vypr VPN include:

• A great selection of features
• “Chameleon” stealth servers and technology – especially great when visiting places like China or Iran
• Smart DNS service
• No usage logs
• Robust customer service

Express VPN

When you need a simplified VPN for Android, this is it. Based in the British Virgin Islands, these “stealth” servers offer a lot of great features, including:

• Great customer service available 24/7
• Easy to use
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• No usage logs, but there are some connection (metadata) logs
• Servers in 94 countries
• Peer-to-peer (P2P)
• 3 simultaneous connections
• Free Smart Domain Name System (DNS)

Nord VPN

Located in Panama, Nord VPN lies well outside the reach of the National Security Agency (NSA). As such, they’re very security focused. Unfortunately, this can make it really slow at times. However, it does have a lot of other great features that make up for this. They include:

• Servers in 61+ countries
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• “Double-hop VPN” chaining feature
• Keeps no logs at all
• Uses strong encryption
• Accepts payment via Bitcoins
• A dedicated Android VPN client with the option to use the Internet Key Exchange version 2 (IKEv2) protocol
• Allows torrenting
• DNS leak protection
• Per-app kill switch available for desktop clients

IPVanish

Since IPVanish is based in the U.S.A, it’s not recommended for those who have concerns regarding NSA. Unfortunately, the support is also average at best. However, there are several reasons why this is considered to be one of the 5 best VPNs for Android phones. These reasons include:

• Keeps no logs at all
• Allows for 5 simultaneous connections
• Smart DNS included for free
• Accepts Bitcoin
• P2P allowed
• Good privacy credentials
• Permits torrenting

Hide My Ass (HMA)

HMA has the market’s largest server network, servicing over 190 countries today, allowing for 2 simultaneous connections. While this may sound great, a lot of people say there’s a serious lack of privacy here because HMA keeps extensive logs. Unfortunately, they’ve been known to hand this information over to authorities when requested.

If you haven’t ever watched the sci-fi show Black Mirror, I highly recommend it. Black Mirror is set in the near future and bases each episode on the accounts of several different peoples’ experiences with the technology and gadgets of their time.

One of them, which is in just about every episode, is a chip in their neck right behind the ear that lets them see visuals like a computer or smartphone device. Its almost as if this show has given great insight to tech companies to develop such possibilities. From early prototypes, such as the Google Glass, to the near public release of the Vuzix Blade.

The Rise and Fall of Google Glass

Google Glass was the talk and excitement for two years from 2012 to 2014. Developed by Google X, a facility within Google that is devoted to tech advancements, it was all the buzz being presumably the first smart glasses to be released to public. Designed to be like a pair of eyeglasses, the Google Glass produced a display much like a smartphone, but hands-free. Being able to communicate with the internet using “natural language” voice commands. It also featured a ‘timeline’ like you would see on your phone or computer with pictures, since the Google Glass was also able to take pictures and record 720p HD videos.

This smart glass brand was a little before its time. The Google Glass was taking much ridicule for being buggy and not complete. As of January of 2015, the Google Glass was announced needing redesigning and will not be released until it is ‘perfect’. Other companies have joined in and have learned from the early mistakes of the Google Glass prototypes that were released to the public.

The smart glasses of Google X were in redevelopment stage and were said to be released in 2017 as the Google Glass Enterprise Edition. As they were in redevelopment, other tech companies have scaled the wall of smart glass technology. Smart glasses, such as; the Solos, Eyesight Raptor, ODG R7/R8/R9, and my favorite the Vuzix Blade.

‘Black Mirror’ Coming to Life with the Vuzix Blade

The Vuzix Blade is scary when it comes to the resemblance of the ‘chip’ in the show Black Mirror. Although they are glasses not chips of course. Shown to the public at CES 2018, people were absolutely astonished. Not only for the first time did the Vuzix Blade look good and sleek, but just like in Black Mirror you have a hands free visual that allows you to use internet, take pictures, videos, even has a facial recognition system, and more. Alexa is even a feature as a smart assistant to help navigate, giving location based alerts, and messages.

The Blade is equipped with an 8-megapixel camera and gives you quality 1080p video that makes pictures and videos crisp and vibrant. It’s also equipped with a 4GB of storage and the battery life is good for almost 2 and half hours. All used by voice controls and programmed to be multilingual. Don’t worry about outside noises interfering with your smart glass interaction, because it has a noise canceling microphone.

On the side of the glasses there is a touchpad built into the frame so you may interact with your ‘on screen’ visual display. You may use these glasses like a phone by connecting via Bluetooth and using the Micro USB ear-phone jack to talk to people and send messages. They can be used as sunglasses too, that can come in multiple lens colors and all of them are standard UV protection. People with prescription eye glasses can get script Blades that also come with the UV protected lens.

Right now people can reserve their Vuzix Blades by going to their website. The Blade is a little on the steep side with Vuzix starting them at $1,800. The company does say in due time that price could drop to $1,000, but for all the technology that this pair of smart glasses can provide, the price of $1,800 doesn’t sound so bad. Take into consideration the buggy and incomplete Google Glass nearly 6 years ago was $1,500 and an additional $225 for custom colored lenses. The Vuzix Blade will be released to consumers in the second quarter of this year and will hopefully bring the full ‘Black Mirror’ experience.